A Plausible Conversation
by sorcerousfang
Summary: In which Seto Kaiba is offered the Sennen Rod, makes some realizations, and comes to conclusions he isn't entirely fond of. He is certain Yugi Mutou has it out for his sanity. He just can't prove it.
1. Chapter 1

Seto Kaiba was certain Yugi Mutou had it out for his sanity. Never mind that he had left him practically comatose after the whole Death-T fiasco (the reasoning he would still insist had to be some horrible reaction to light stimulation via holograms), the vertically-challenged teen continued to spout nonsense about magic and monsters being real, and then had the gall to add that he was apparently the spirit of a pharaoh right out of Ancient Egypt.

If he could find it in himself to believe that the boy had the ability to conspire against him so greatly, he would have thought the distinctly Egyptian theme present during Battle City was all his doing. Isis Ishtar and her stone tablet, her brother and his twisted personality, the sudden 'visions' tossing him back into some primitive age where he wore an awful set of robes and fought using giant stone carvings rather than cards – all of them were very neatly tied together with the precision one would expect from an elaborate plot to make him lose his mind.

However, he _couldn't_ make himself believe that Yugi was capable of such grand schemes.

But he was doing a very good job of trying to make it _look_ like he might.

"…You're joking," he finally replied to the obviously not joking King of Games.

"I rarely joke, Kaiba."

Yugi stood before him with all of the commanding presence of a king, offering to him the gaudy gold piece Marik Ishtar had been so fond of keeping around.

Despite his denials and declarations otherwise, Seto was quite aware that _something_ rather beyond normal understanding was going on. He wasn't blind. Quite the contrary; Seto was very observant. He would never have gotten where he was without having a keen eye, and while he might be skeptical and shrewd, it didn't mean he was completely ignorant of what was right in front of him.

Yugi, for instance, had been a very quiet classmate for all the years Seto knew him. After the large puzzle became a sudden, strange, and permanent fashion statement around the boy's neck, he had marked differences in personality during certain situations. More recently, it seemed as though the two personalities were becoming more alike, as if they had balanced themselves out a bit.

As such it had become a bit harder to see the differences between the two personalities, and it seemed like his little group of friends remained none-the-wiser. Seto was quite aware of when the switch occurred, however, because the _kun_ was dropped from his surname when Yugi addressed him, and his speech patterns in general switched from polite to borderline arrogant. There was also the unnerving (and Kaiba would sooner give up his Blue Eyes than admit that aloud) shift in color in Yugi's eyes. Unnatural but calm amethyst suddenly burned like fiery garnet, and he couldn't help but make the comparison to fresh blood. He had first thought it was a trick of the light, but it happened again and again in different lighting, and Seto finally accepted it was real. As for the matter of whether the two were separate spirits as they claimed or the wild-haired teen was simply suffering from multiple personality disorder, he didn't know and didn't care to find out.

Seto would also be a fool to think his complete understanding of a dead language was a trick. His eyes were not being made to see differently than his brain was understanding – he tested it. The card was simply a card with a different language in the text box. That he understood the language was one of those decidedly _not_ normal things he had no scientific explanation for.

And the Sennen Rod was another.

That he knew the name for the gaudy hunk of gold before having been supplied it bothered him. That his fingers itched to grasp it after so terribly long bothered him more, because he had never held the damned item before in his life.

"It is yours," Confident Yugi affirmed. "Or was, 3000 years ago."

"And you expect me to buy into your reincarnation and destiny bullshit any more than I already do because…?"

Yugi let out a frustrated sigh before abruptly shifting eye color on him.

"Kaiba-kun, hear me out for just a little bit, alright?"

And Polite Yugi was back.

Seto decided he liked talking with this Yugi more than the other. The other was better for dueling against, but made conversation somewhat stiff. This Yugi was much more understanding when it came to differing points of view, and wasn't quick to shout nonsense about destiny and fate.

It was also this Yugi who had stopped other Yugi from knocking him off of Crawford's castle during Duelist Kingdom. He had mocked him for being weak, but after his own loss to the crazed cartoonist and subsequent soul-trapping, he had had time to think about that duel. Those red eyes had vanished, and the Yugi before him had been considerate enough to spare his life and give him a chance to rescue his brother himself, despite the fact that his loss meant he would not get the chance to save his grandfather (though he did in the end anyway, and Seto figured his friends had something to do with that).

Yugi might be far too compassionate for his own good, but it was a trait Seto admired in odd instances, especially when he saw outcomes he hadn't expected. He didn't have the capacity to care for others the way this Yugi did, and it was interesting to observe someone with the ability to be so self-sacrificing.

"I'll listen, but it doesn't mean I'm joining in on your Egyptian role-playing nonsense," he replied.

Yugi brightened despite the mild look of exasperation that crossed his features. The moment passed and he frowned deeply, though, glancing off to his left as if looking at something Seto couldn't see before shaking his head.

"Hang on just a moment," he said, and suddenly he was pulling the chain holding his puzzle over his head.

"This might go better without you interrupting," Seto heard him mutter under his breath. He jogged off to pass the piece over to Katsuya, who looked just as bewildered as Seto was that the short teen had taken it off. When he returned, he smiled up at him and motioned for them to move on.

Seto did after a long moment of contemplation.

They came to a secluded area of the building and took a seat across from one another, blue eyes meeting amethyst straight on, and Yugi took a deep breath.

"I know you don't want to believe all this stuff about Ancient Egypt and magic and all of that, Kaiba-kun, but the fact of the matter is that it's _real_ ," he started. Seto's frown deepened.

"Isis-san showed you the tablet at the museum, right?" he continued. "It doesn't make sense, but I've seen the results of the tests run on it, and it's genuine. There could be a number of reasons why we look like the figures on it, or why our favorite monsters just happen to have been carved above them. I don't know about fate or destiny, but coincidence isn't really the right term, you know?"

"You're starting to bore me, Yugi," Seto warned. "Get on with it."

He gave him a look that said he was trying to make a point, but continued anyway.

"The other me wondered about Marik-kun's possession of the Sennen Rod and suspects that he fell victim to it like so many others before him have. He wasn't a match for the item.

"My puzzle took a lot of lives before I solved it. Bakura-kun's Sennen Ring did the same before he came to possess it. If the person using it isn't the right owner, then the shadows consume them. Marik's dark half was probably a result of an improper match, and we suspect Crawford-san would have been a very different man if he had never run into Shadi and had the Eye forced on him."

"And you think _I_ am this so called 'proper match,'" Seto clarified, privately wondering where Yugi had picked up the information on Crawford's attainment of the item.

"It seems incredibly likely, given the image on the tablet. Marik also mentioned that the Rod reacted to you a few times, and he couldn't explain why."

Part of Seto wanted to completely disagree with Yugi, but he was having a hard time getting around all of the little connections that made the idea so plausible.

And the need to hold the item was making him clench his fists in annoyance.

Yugi sighed, drawing his attention back to his face as he closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair.

"Honestly, I wish this weren't so complicated. All of these prophecies and cryptic messages would make a lot more sense if they would just spell it out."

It was interesting to see the mild-mannered boy seem so completely done with the ideas he had been preaching, and Seto was distracted momentarily by the sight.

"Or if the other me could remember his past," he continued. "I feel like we could have avoided so many issues if we could have figured that out."

"He can't remember?"

"No, not at all. You should see his soul room; it's a complete..."

He trailed off and his eyes snapped open to stare wide-eyed at him. Seto realized his slip when the King of Games next spoke.

"You just…referred to the other me?"

Seto rolled his eyes.

"I'm skeptical, not blind," he informed him. "I may not believe in all of this ancient magic and prophecy shit, but when a dramatic change in personality is obvious, it doesn't escape me. Besides, your eyes change colors when you switch. Bakura is the same, isn't he?"

"Wait, my _eyes_ change colors?"

"His are red."

"But the others can't…they can't tell."

"Then they're blinder than I thought."

"No, seriously, Kaiba-kun!" Yugi insisted, leaning forward in his chair. "We've done switch tests with them to see if anything does change. The only thing they can tell from is just the other me's confidence. There aren't any physical changes."

"That's ridiculous. Your eyes switched right before you took the puzzle off when you insisted I hear you out. He was the one talking to me first."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"…That's so weird. I mean, I notice Bakura's eyes change when the spirit of the Ring takes over, but no one else sees it. I thought I was just seeing things. If you can see it too, then…"

"Don't even go there, Yugi," Seto warned. "I don't even want to dwell on it."

Yugi just shook his head.

"All the more reason to think you're supposed to be the proper owner, though. The other me insists he knew you when he was alive, and though he doesn't remember anything from the tablet, it seems really familiar to him. It explains the strong rivalry between you two."

The way Yugi left himself out of that made Seto stop to think about just who he had his rivalry with. He was quite unhappy with his conclusion.

"I have a rivalry with a dead guy," he noted aloud. Or a split personality. Either way, ridiculous.

Yugi's laughter came out in a sputter as though he had tried and failed miserably to contain it.

* * *

 **I've played around with this idea before and have seen it pop up in some of the stories I've read. I enjoy exploring Kaiba's limited understanding of Yugi and Atem, and I really wish he had been given more opportunity to interact with the items.**

 **Apologies for the use of character's Japanese names and if anyone was thrown off by them.**

 **There is at least one more chapter developing for this, but I can't say when it will surface.**


	2. Chapter 2

It took some persuasion tactics on Seto's part to get back to the main point of the conversation, if persuasion meant pushing Yugi's buttons by being insistent on certain terminology.

"Suppose I decide to humor you and take up the stick."

"Rod."

" _Stick_ ," he insisted, determined to keep that button pushed so the shrimp would stop laughing (and to maintain a distance between himself and that damned item). "Do I end up with a voice in my head, or do I get to be pleasantly left alone?"

Yugi contemplated that for a while, hand on his chin and head inclined in thought.

"…No way of knowing unless you try it, I suppose. Marik's dark personality wasn't really a part of the item. We figure he developed because of Marik's past trauma and not having complete control over its power. If there _is_ a spirit in there, and you really are supposed to have it, then it would probably be that of the figure on the tablet.

"But, like I said, there isn't a guarantee. We have no idea how the items were made, under what circumstances the other me and the spirit of the ring came to be trapped in the items, or what kind of role they really play now. I mean, I could be completely wrong about Marik and Crawford-san's issues with the items. It's mostly stories and speculation I'm going on."

Yugi, away from his friends and without any threat to worry about (and minus a certain voice in his head), spoke more analytically than Seto was used to. Beneath his _friendship conquers everything_ attitude, there was something more logical within the boy, and he was momentarily thrown by that discovery. He made the nonsense he was speculating sound perfectly reasonable.

"Crawford didn't have one," he noted offhandedly, thinking back to the man and his interactions with him. No red eye, for one, unless the spirit within the item had taken over entirely and had a thing for colored contact lenses.

"Not that we're aware of," Yugi agreed. "Unstable in a lot of ways, but not possessed by a spirit. I wasn't that close with the other me at the time, but I think another spirit would have said something. The spirit of the Ring seems to know something about the other me's past, so it would stand to reason another spirit trapped in an item might."

"Not really," Seto corrected. "You know of two so-called spirits. One of them has amnesia."

"...Ah, yeah, I guess you're right. Still, I doubt they would have ignored us."

"Probably not."

Speaking of odds, his weren't great. The Sennen… the stick had a fifty-percent chance of having a voice accompanying it (Isis had that necklace, but he didn't think she swapped personalities ever – she was always stuck on her destiny rant, even after he defeated her), and a one-hundred-percent chance of messing with his head in some capacity.

…This was all complete and utter nonsense. What the hell was he even contemplating this for?

Yugi must have caught his eyes shifting to the item beside him, because he followed up roughly with his train of thought.

" _If_ there is a spirit in the Sennen Rod, I doubt you're the kind of person who would let it change you."

After a beat, Seto realized Yugi was hitting on the exact concern he was dancing around, and concluded that he had changed his mind; he liked conversing with the other Yugi better, personality be damned. This one was proving to be far sharper than he had ever given him credit for, and he was suddenly uncomfortable in his presence in a way he had never experienced before.

"You've changed."

It slipped out without his consent. Yugi merely shrugged.

"I think I've grown more than anything," he explained before frowning suddenly as Seto raised an eyebrow. "Obviously not physically!"

Seto couldn't help but bark a laugh at that. The shorter teen's cheeks flushed in either anger or embarrassment.

" _I meant_ ," he emphasized, "as a person. The other me has helped me get past some of my insecurities. I still don't have his confidence, but I'm not exactly the shy kid that got pushed around so much. I've made friends, traveled a bunch, have had _way_ too many brushes with death – of course I've changed.

"You've got a much stronger personality than I did when I finished the Puzzle. You're stubborn, but you're smart, determined, and ambitious. Nothing stands in the way of what you want. You know what's important to you and would do anything to protect it, even stand on the edge of a castle and risk falling to your death as a roundabout way of begging to get the chance to go save your brother."

"Hey."

"You don't beg, I know. I'm making a point. No spirit of an item is going to force you to change. No power you gain from it is going to go to your head. You determine your own path; you proved that to Isis-san in your duel, didn't you?"

Part of him was entirely thrown off by Yugi's assessment of him, because it seemed too… intrusive. He'd never realized Yugi paid that much attention to his personality. He wasn't wrong, of course – nothing got in his way when he wanted something – but it was still odd to hear it so confidently from the current champion.

 _No spirit of an item is going to force you to change._

He disagreed with that, though. He insisted it had to have been the lights that left him in that state, _knew_ it couldn't have been what Yugi's other personality claimed it to be, and yet there was that small sliver of understanding that the other was somehow responsible for the time he spent locked within himself. He had come out of that _changed_ , and whether he admitted it to himself or not, Yugi's other personality had every bit forced that on him.

Seto refused to say anything to Yugi about it. Doing so would deny him his right to deny it.

He could acknowledge that the items _appeared_ to cause certain things to happen. The Puzzle _appeared_ to give Yugi a split personality and _appeared_ to give said personality the ability to manipulate things he shouldn't. The Eye likewise had done… well, something very similar. Locked within himself or locked within a card; he didn't see much difference looking back on it now.

The incident at the docks was still very fresh in his mind, and he wouldn't deny that Katsuya had to have been under some form of hypnosis at least to have been able to pull off that show, so the Ro- _stick_ seemed to mess with people's minds in other ways.

 _If_ (and there was a severe emphasis on the supposition) the items actually had magic powers, Seto certainly had no desire to use them. Not in the ways they had been used on him or on people around him.

…He really hated that this conversation was leading to him contemplating such ridiculous notions as _magic_.

"Look, Yugi," he finally replied, drawing himself forward to lean on his elbows. Not exactly a power move from a body language perspective, but his classmate didn't care for authoritative gestures. This would give the appearance of leveling with him more personally. "If you know me well enough to say that, then you know I want nothing to do with these things. What's the point in asking me to use one of these things?"

The posture seemed to work, because the smaller teen's shoulders slumped somewhat after he let out a sigh.

"It was mostly out of curiosity," he admitted. "I don't believe the Items were originally meant to be used for evil purposes. Theory, of course, and likely born from the fact that neither myself nor the other me want to think about the implications otherwise, but I figured that, in the hands of the right person, the Sennen Rod would work differently. Given the tablet and what Marik said about it reacting to you, we figured the best person to draw out its power would be you."

"I'd prefer _not_ to be your guinea pig."

"Eh, I suppose this does amount to an experiment…"

Yep. Seto was seeing Yugi in an _entirely_ new light. Part of him resented that, partly because it made the category he had filed him under no longer suitable, and mostly because he realized this side of Yugi was suddenly beginning to _appeal_ to him, and that was dangerously tipping the balance of their acquaintanceship closer to tentative friendship. Seto enjoyed analyzing data and running experiments, especially if it meant he got ahead of the game, and he didn't expect Yugi to present him with something to be curious about.

...Would running this experiment get him ahead of the game?

It _could_ , he supposed, if he allowed himself to believe in its power, but...

In the shadows around them, he could still see the images of that battle at the docks, of duelists falling one after another to the power of the items, and he _shuddered_ at them. If he was honest with himself, the item drew him as much as it repulsed him. There was a darkness there that reminded him of his time within himself, or that time within the card, or the atmosphere around that final duel, and it felt entirely dangerous.

 _Maybe_ things would be different if he controlled its supposed power. _Maybe_ , given his understanding of the risks involved with the items, given that he has seemingly witnessed the dark sides of such powers, it would be different in his hands. He would control it. Yugi had said it; he was smart, determined...

 _Ambitious_.

He shook his head. That was a double-edged sword. Power like that, _if it were real_ , could tip that trait in dangerous directions.

Yugi didn't have an ambitious bone in his body, near as he knew. He was empathetic and kind to a fault, and (assuming the items did the things they appeared to do) that kindness didn't prevent the power within from doing things Yugi disagreed with. Their duel at the castle demonstrated that quite clearly. He might be in control of that now, but there was certainly a time where he wasn't, and Seto wasn't prepared to fall into the same situation.

"Kaiba-kun?"

He looked up to find Yugi looking at him with slight concern, but instead of addressing the current King of Games, he came to a sudden realization.

Yugi was _bright_.

Compared to the shadows he felt around them, his classmate was like a sun. He wasn't sure how he had _missed_ something so obvious – he was observant, damn it – but it all made sense. Yes, Yugi hadn't had control over the Puzzle at first, not entirely, but it had to have been that light that made it possible for him not to end up lost to it. That light made it possible for him to hold the Rod without shuddering, to carry the weight of his own item around his neck.

Without it weighing him down, it was just so obvious.

Seto didn't know if he held that kind of light. He was pretty certain he didn't, no matter what Yugi might say otherwise, and while there was a possibility that one could grow in the presence of such darkness, he hated the idea of something controlling him. Nothing controlled him. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, however he wanted.

He laughed. This was ridiculous.

"Did you really think I would agree to this?" he asked, amusement in his tone.

The concerned look dropped from Yugi's face in favor of one of resignation.

"We figured it was worth a shot," he shrugged. "The other me bet on you turning it down in the end, but I was slightly more optimistic."

"You said it yourself, Yugi; I determine my own path. _Destiny_ and _fate_ are things I'll never adhere to. I don't care if I'm meant to hold the stick or not. If I don't want it, I won't take it."

"Yeah. I guess I should have known."

The slight smile on his face looked off. Seto frowned as he observed something else.

"...Why are you _really_ asking me?"

Yugi gave him a long look, holding his gaze as though searching for an answer, before he seemed to shrink before him.

"Honestly, I'm a bit scared," he admitted quietly. "I didn't tell the other me about it, but he probably noticed and agreed to at least ask you if you would take it. We're supposed to collect the items, but I'm worried about having so many together. They all have power, they're all potentially dangerous, and we've all seen what someone influenced by _one_ item can do. Somehow I'm eventually supposed to bring seven to Egypt? What if something goes wrong? What if _I_ go wrong?"

They were silent for several minutes while Seto absorbed that. Fear drove Yugi to seek his help? Not the first time, sure, but this seemed entirely born of a lack of belief in his own power. His understanding of the items' apparent powers likely contributed to his fears, but they were unfounded from Seto's perspective (belief aside). He seemed to think he could be influenced by them enough to end up becoming like the foes they had fought against, but he had to realize he had the power to balance those forces, right?

...Right?

When he realized Yugi actually didn't understand his own power, his frown deepened. Perhaps it was because his classmate looked to others more than himself that he didn't know, but it frustrated Seto to a point that he felt the need to address it.

He stood, looking down at Yugi with a serious expression.

"We _have_ seen what someone influenced by one item can do. So far, he hasn't done too badly. I don't think that's about to change."

That would serve well enough as his final answer. He left Yugi and the ridiculous conversation behind him, determined to forget it had ever occurred. He had far more important things to do, like reworking his deck to accommodate for Yugi's god cards, or updating the programming on his duel disks, or working out the final details of his business venture in America.

Yugi could deal with destiny whenever necessary.

Seto was perfectly comfortable tearing his own path through it.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap! I won't be writing more for this story, but I hope to do something else with the Yugioh universe in the future. Until then, read on!**

 **-sf**


End file.
